In spite of Mr Balloon's side letting me down over GLORIFICATION OF JAMES BOND (hence me being ON THE MOON at the moment), the HOUSE OF LORDS club have still been trying to stop Mr Blair REDEFINING the word "VOLUNTARY" so that he can have a go at imposing his I.D.IOT card scheme.

As far as I can tell, this means that you STILL get all the HORRIBLE BAD THINGS of Mr Blair's scheme – like basically losing all your PRIVACY to the ENORMOUS expensive INSANE super-computer that goes MAD and tries to take over the world!

[R: if it's already "insane" then it can't GO mad…]

Whatever, Daddy!

[R: I'm just saying!]

So you get the BAD things and without even the benefit of the USEFUL piece of PLASTIC to scrape ice off your CAR with!

What, you think it's useful for anything ELSE???

Meanwhile…

I have escaped from the MONSTER! …but I seem to have fallen down a bit of a HOLE!

I VERY NEARLY fell into the BLUE STRING SOUP. But fortunately, my fluffy bottom was big enough to stick in the hole on the way down.

BBC4 showed us “A for Andromeda”, which is a remake of a serial which they made a long time ago and (like some of the DOCTOR WHO) “mislaid”. It was rather good and Daddy got snuffly at the end.

However, early on, one of the scientists said something like: “all this happening by chance, it seems a bit improbable”.

And this reminds me of something that got Daddy Richard hot under the collar on “Thought for the Day” on the radio last week, when the man said: “either it all happened by chance or there was a designer.”

This is what Daddy calls a FALSE DICHOTOMY.

(A Dichotomy is a choice between two things and NOT a system of government based on being ruled by GREG DYKE, which is what I thought.)

If you were to jump out of the window, NOBODY would say that what happens next is a choice between the chance of flying off in a random direction or being dragged down to Earth by Cuddly Chtulhu.

No, you would say that there is a physical law called GRAVITY.

Then you would say “Arrrgh, SPLATT!” so DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

People get a bit confused because they think that the universe goes nothing, alakazam, stars+planets+people+lollipop ladies+radio four etc.

In fact it takes lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS and LOTS of tiny little baby steps over a VERY long time. MUCH longer than the attention span of most people. Perhaps it would be easier to notice if it took place in the ADVERT BREAKS on ITV1.

Anyway, watch out for people saying the FALSE DICHOTOMY, because it is a BAD argument! It is REALLY saying: “this happened MY way or in this very silly way that is nothing like what other people really say.”

Monday, March 27, 2006

Daddy Alex has gone up to Manchester and is spending Mother’s Day with, er, his mother.

While he is away, Daddy Richard is building a clockwork dinosaur. I DO hope Daddy Alex gets home soon!

There is still a lot of fuss on the telly about Mr Blair doing favours for people who have given him money. And now it seems that Mr Blair’s people are having a go at Mr Balloon’s people for doing the same.

In fact, we listened to “Any Questions” and Mr Gerald Kaufman was trying to smear EVERYONE, including the Liberal Democrats, but he got that WRONG because the Liberal Democrats were checked out by the ELECTORAL COMMISSION and were told that it was OKAY!

I think that is VERY BAD to be trying to SMEAR EVERYONE. It is already bad enough that QUITE A LOT of people didn’t bother to vote at the last election last year and this is only going to make things WORSE.

VERY NEARLY ALL of the people who do politics are actually GOOD and HONEST. Yes, even in the Labour and the Conservatories. People do not do politics to get RICH. It is too much hard work! Occasionally, rarely, once in a while, someone (NOT looking at YOU, Mr Blair) will go a little bit PECULIAR. But this doesn’t mean that everyone else is ROTTEN.

What is DOES mean is that the other people have to work EVEN HARDER to make politics clean again.

Mr Blair was QUITE RIGHT when he said that they had to be WHITER THAN WHITE. It is a shame he was not listening when he said that!

In this case, people from the Labour (like maybe MR FROWN) should say to Mr Blair:

“Look, urr, I’m sorry, urr, Tony, but you cannot be on our team any longer. Urr. We cannot work with you, because you, urr, make it look like we’re all a bunch of CROOKS.”

Because if they don’t then it WILL look like they are all a bunch of CROOKS!

And Mr Balloon should stop keeping quiet about where his party got all its money from either.

If the people who gave him bungs loans still do not want to admit they are friends of Mr Balloon, then it is very simple: Mr Balloon should GIVE THEM THE MONEY BACK! Then he will have CLEAN HANDS and not look SHIFTY.

Also, if you think that a charity auction won by RICH FOREIGN BACKERS might be going to look like it is a SCAM… that is because it IS going to look like a SCAM!

Now, because the Electoral Commission said that the Liberal Democrats were OKAY, I do not know what they need to do, but it is no good me being smug about this because if I am something will turn up to bite me on my FLUFFY BOTTOM! SO the Liberal Democrats should make sure they are CLEAN too!

Plus, this means all the other parties too. Even that one led by CATWOMAN off Big Brother.

ANYWAY, that’s just what I think.

And now, the Clanger want to have the Internet back so that they can sell BLUE STRING SOUP on eBAY.

These hooting sock people are starting to give me a headache. I think I will go and explore some of these MOON CAVES!

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Do not PANIC! This is not a plot by the CLANGERS to overrun the Earth – “Invasion” is a special place called a DOCTOR WHO convention.

Even though I am now on the Moon for my own safety, I still have friends on the Earth and – like JAMES BOND! – I will give my SECRET AGENTS special code names to protect their identities from Mr Blair’s SECRET POLICE. They will be known only as DADDY A and DADDY R!

So, my Daddies went to the Invasion convention yesterday and have told me all about it. Daddy A concealed himself in the queue for autographs and Daddy R mingled with the crowd in the main hall listening to the GUEST SPEAKERS.

The FIRST people on the stage were MR WARIS HUSSEIN and MR DERREN NESBITT.

Mr Waris is a lovely man and he was also the very first ever person to direct an episode of DOCTOR WHO which is called AN UNEARTHLY CHILD and YOU can watch this if you get the DVD like we have!

Mr Derren is an actor who appeared in the fourth ever DOCTOR WHO story, which is called “Marco Polo” (which was ALSO directed by Mr Waris!) and is about the FAMOUS EXPLORER Fiat Polo. Unfortunately you cannot watch the DVD of Marco Polo. This is a bit of a sore point with my Daddies, because the BBC BURNT the only copy of the DVD!!! However some very clever people have done the NEXT BEST THING, and this is very good too.

We HAVE been watching a lot of Mr Derren recently, wearing a variety of wigs and sticky on beards, as he is usually GUEST VILLAIN in SIR LANCELOT. This is an exciting adventure serial which I would enjoy very much EXCEPT that it has a VERY AWFUL theme song that makes my fluffy ears ache!

Mr Derren told us about when he was in ITALY and ate at the same trattoria every day and had the SPAGHETTI BOLOGNAISE every day! Eventually he asked Mama Trattoria how she made spaghetti bolognaise so that he could make it for himself when he came home. So for years afterwards he could only make bolognaise in a HUGE pan enough to serve fifty people. (I think my Daddies have this same problem!)

The NEXT people on stage were the very lovely people from BIG FINISH audio adventures. They were: Mr Simon and Mr Ian and Mr Joe and Mr Dick Darlington (the handsome Australian barman) and the very lovely Mr Russell T Gary who is the producer of DOCTOR WHO.

Big Fish make DOCTOR WHO stories on CD (as I have said before CDs are like DVDs but without pictures). They ALSO do CD adventures of PROFESSOR BENNY SUMMERFIELD who is a friend who used to travel with Dr WHO but who doesn’t need a Time Lord to do cool stuff! And they do BOOKS too!

Agent Daddy R was particularly excited by the news that they have just recorded a Doctor Who adventure for COLIN BAKER and NICOLA BRYANT with CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN and that they will be publishing a book about Benny from BEN AARANOVICH.

My Daddy says that I have a Big Finish, but I THINK that he means I have a Big Bottom!!! He is VERY mean!

After that, the THIRD person (if you count the Big Finish people as one person, otherwise he was the SEVENTH EIGHTH) on the stage was Mr RICHARD BRIARS. Apparently he was in DOCTOR WHO once too – and he apologised for his underplayed and understated performance.

But he is much more famous for lots of other stuff. In particular playing Mr TOM in THE GOOD LIFE. This is still very popular THIRTY YEARS after they made it! Mr Richard thought that this was because it was not like the television on telly today, and that it is quite a relief to most viewers that Margo DOESN’T come in with a six inch knife dripping in blood! I think he has a POINT there!

However, since he enjoys being an actor, Mr Richard says that (much as he loves the Good Life) he enjoyed the acting more in EVER DECREASING CIRCLES. I think this is one of the VERY FEW things my Daddies do not have on DVD! No doubt they will correct this soon.

But the BEST thing about Mr Richard is that he is the voice of RHOOBARB AND CUSTARD who are my very favoritest cartoon green dog and pink cat. (Do not try watching all of the cartoons in one go though or the Nuh-nuh-nerrr Nuh-nuh-nerrr theme tune will drive you around the bend! Even more than the Sir Lancelot song!)

After this Daddy R went to see where Daddy A had got to. This was very naughty of him as it meant that he missed the talk from Mr KEV McCURDY who worked on the fights and stunts for the new telly series of DOCTOR WHO. Fortunately, Daddy A met him for his autograph and said he was very, very nice and probably the most genuinely pleased that people WANTED his autograph!

In the afternoon, Daddy R waited with Daddy A in the long queue for autographs from MISS CAMILLE CODURI. Even though this was a very long queue, it actually moved rather quickly and was organised very well! Even so, this meant that Daddy R missed the talk from Mr Dirty Den. Another black mark for Agent Daddy there!

However, he did return to the hall to listen to MISS SARAH SUTTON who once played ROO in WINNIE THE POOH and was in the MOON STALLION before she got to travel with TWO Dr Whos as Nyssa, who is a fairy princess from the planet Traken.

She was asked about her “notorious SKIRT DROPPING scene!” and told us that the producer had said to her “you’ve got such PRETTY underwear and it’s such a shame that no one gets to see it!”

I have looked up the word NAÏVE!

Both of my Daddies Agents were in the hall, and so was almost everybody else, for the first convention appearance for the fabulous MISS CAMILLE CODURI who plays ROSE TYLER’S MUM on telly. She may have been a bit nervous to start with, but she soon hit her stride when she realised that the audience loved her.

[R: And loved a bit of Jackie innuendo!]

She also gave us a bit of a TEASER TRAILER for the SECOND series: apparently Jackie will TIME TRAVEL, and it will be funny how it happens! Daddies are gagging for the new series more than ever now!

After the RAPTUROUS applause for Miss Camille had died down, the day was rounded out with a panel of four excellent people who had all been MONSTERS! Mr Barnaby Edwards and Mr Nicholas Pegg had both trundled and terrified as shiny scary gold DALEKS; Mr Simon Day was the STEWARD who got cooked by THE END OF THE WORLD; and Mr Alan Ruscoe was lots of monsters, but the most terrifying was certainly the ANNE DROID!!!

Anyway, I must go now because I have lots of things to explain to the CLANGERS who have not seen the new series of DOCTOR WHO yet – they have been having to make do with some old films of THE DALEKS MASTER PLAN and FURY FROM THE DEEP.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

After yesterday, I have had to escape in a ROCKET SHIP with my new best friend FLASH GLADSTONE! (He is related to the FAMOUS PRIME MINISTER Richard Gadstone!)

We have BLASTED OFF for the planet MONGO in the hope that His Imperial Supremacy HRH Sir Mr the Merciless will be able to protect me!

Fortunately, we can still get telly here in space!

We were going to watch “Questionable Time”, because Mr David Laws is on it and this means that I can plug Daddy Alex’s blog!

But what’s this? Mr Boy George has just popped up on the telly. Isn’t this after his bedtime?

Anyway, he says that Mr Frown is a jolly rotten stinker and yah boo sucks to him. He says that Mr Frown has ruined the entire country by charging oodles of tax and taking all the sweeties ‘n’ stuff. But don’t worry ‘cos things would be whizzo and double splendid under Mr Balloon who promises to, er, not do anything different ‘cos that would frighten the horses, what ho!

Now let’s raid the tuck shop: lashings of ginger pop all round!

[R: Millennium is crediting the shadow chancellor with more charisma than he actually demonstrated.]

Well, the RadioTimes have managed to make Daddy Richard look VERY stupid, because Mr Poirot is back next week and the week after in “After the Funeral” and “Taken at the Flood” so he was wrong BOTH times!

In the meantime, I was going to write a special piece about Mr Frown’s budget but I tried watching it and FELL ASLEEP! Did he say ANYTHING interesting at all? I know he has been doing it for ten years, but it seemed like he went on for ten years ALL IN ONE DAY!

I woke up when Mr Balloon appeared and started shouting. He was very excited about something, but I find it hard to believe it was Mr Frown’s speech. Maybe he had just swallowed a wasp.

But there is MUCH MORE serious news than Mr Frown boring the pants off everyone – Mr Balloon has BETRAYED ME! He has stopped his team in the HOUSE OF LORDS club from voting against GLORIFYING JAMES BOND and now it will be the law!!

I must go now, because I think Mr Blair has sent his STORMTROOPERS to GET ME!!!!!

Monday, March 20, 2006

My Daddy Richard is a fan of detective mystery stories. My favourite is INSPECTOR MORSE because he has a very cool car, but last night was a different detective, one called Monsieur Hercule Poirot. From France Belgium.

It had a good bit with an old fashioned blue sports car. Apart from that I do not remember much, so I have asked Daddy to say something instead of me.

CARDS ON THE TABLE

It is hard to believe, comparing ITV's never less than excellent productions of "Agatha Christie's Poirot" to the kitch slapstick of their abominable "Agatha Christie's Marple" (no MISS), that you are even watching the same channel.

Last night's "Poirot" was, if anything, above the usual standard. Beautifully filmed and acted and a plot that kept entertaining as it twisted. Along the way, Mr P managed to uncover the truth behind no less than five horrible murders, plus um, penetrate the secret of his friend Superintendent Wheeler of the Yard. There is the suspicion that ITV may have added slightly more twilight world of the homosexuals than perhaps Dame Agatha originally included but – unlike "Marple's" "let's bung in some lesbians" attitude – it did work to add to the convolvulations of the plot.

The dénouement, by cunning use of a bluff with an envelope of Mr Shaitana's photographs (though, personally, I got the impression that the revealing photos show one suspect to be TV rather than gay) proves that although the killer is a daring whiz at bridge, it is Poirot who is the ace at poker.

On the acting honours, quite apart from the usual brilliantly observed performance of David Suchet, there was a brilliant turn from Zoë Wannamaker as, well pretty much Dame Agatha Christie, here under the Mary-Sue of Mrs Ariadne Oliver. Although clearly the comic turn, she played it with lightness and sincerity, a gentle mocking of the grande dames of detective fiction (and their occasional lapses of research). Particularly enjoyable were her little glows of pleasure whenever Monsieur Poirot praised her cleverness or success. Last year she was just about the only watchable performance in "Marple", as well as – of course – stealing the show from DOCTOR WHO as the Lady Cassandra O'Brien Dot Delta Seventeen. Goodness alone knows why she sticks with "My Family" – must have a mortgage to pay, I suppose.

Having said all that, Suchet and Wannamaker very nearly had the evening lifted out from under them by a gloriously delicious performance from Alexander Siddig (yes, one-time Doctor Bashir of DEEP SPACE NINE) in spite of him being dead after the first twenty minutes. Assured, decadent and fey and DEEPLY photogenic, plus ambivalently sexual.

Supporting cast managed to keep up with the stars, particularly Lesley Manville as frozen hearted Mrs Lorrimer and Tristan Gemmill as utter cad Major Despard.

Suchet remains on course to complete filming of every Poirot story, apparently doing them in batches of four, with now just twelve novels left to dramatise. I fully expect the last two to be "The Murder on the Orient Express" and "Curtain".

Still to screen of the most recently recorded quartet are apparently "The Big Four" and (one for Millennium) "Elephants Can Remember".

WELL, no one has offered to loan me ONE MILLION POUNDS so that I can buy myself the title of LORD FLUFFYPHANT yet.

Boo!

There is a great deal of fuss in the newspapers about this. I do not know why. My Daddy Richard is ALWAYS getting rubbish junk-mail in the post saying "have a squillion pound loan and your dreams could come true". Daddy always puts these in the recycling, but probably Mr Blair is just much more GULLIBLE!

(Like the way he always falls for everything he is told by the American President Mr DARTH CHENEY and his pet monkey.)

I have noticed that the Conservatories keep trying to remind everyone about Liberal Prime Minister Mr LLOYD GEORGE selling Peerages like Mr Blair does. If the most recent Liberal dodgy doings that they can come up with is 1922 then REALLY this is a good thing.

A friend of Mr Balloon's called Mr Boy George was on the telly in the morning saying that Mr Balloon would have something interesting to say (so this was BIG news, although it does not appear to have turned out true.) Boy George said that Mr Balloon would be announcing that from now on the Conservatories will stop keeping secret where they get all their money from.

Daddy Richard thinks that this means that someone has just paid off Mr Balloon's overdraft for him.

And now they will stop taking bungs donations of over a million pounds.

"What are the chance that the Tories know 200 people who can give them £100,000 compared to Labour only knowing 20 people who can give them a £million?"

My Daddy is VERY cynical in the mornings!

"We haven't just come up with these policies overnight," said Boy George. "We've spent the last three months getting them ready for when this scandal broke."

Which is a PRETTY AMAZING COINCIDENCE, if you think about it.

Mr Balloon has apparently had another idea: he will reduce MPs by 10%. Some people have suggested that this is because Mr Balloon and his friend Boy George are really HOBBITS: if all the other MPs get 10% smaller then perhaps they will stop ignoring Mr Balloon.

PSI forgot to say "thank you" to Mr Will for reminding me of the Star Wars game yesterday.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

We were watching STAR WARS and what I want to know is this: Why don’t the DEATH STAR’S TIE Fighters outnumber the rebels’ X-WINGS a hundred to one? Does Gov Tarkin only send twenty TIE fighters out of a sense of fair play or WHAT?

Anyway, here is a game that my Daddies play and you can play along at home. It is called “Match the Conservatory to the Star Wars quote!”

Here are a few EXAMPLES. You can try and see if you know which Star Wars baddy REALLY said the quote. Or you can make up some of your own!

Friday, March 17, 2006

Apparently, this is the idea that the WHOLE WORLD and EVERY LIVING THING IN IT were all created by god.

NOT Cuddly Cthulhu! A nice god, more like Mr Blair's imaginary friend. NOT Mr Frown!

Not only that, but it was done in seven days – or rather six days and a day off.

Now this is a VERY NICE STORY that was made up in the OLDEN DAYS (even before Daddy Richard!) in order that Daddies could tell their baby elephants where things came from when they did not really know.

Nowadays people (and ME!) have learned LOTS AND LOTS of things such as where stars and planets and elements and elephants come from and so now Daddies CAN tell their baby elephants the answers to lots of these questions. (Or at least, baby elephants can go and look the answers up on the Internet!)

But it turns out that some people think their nice story from the olden days is TRUE!

(At least, they SAY that – Daddy Alex thinks that it might be a PRACTICAL JOKE and has a good laugh!)

Perhaps they do not know that people have gone to all the time and trouble of finding out the proper answers for them!

But the worst thing is that some people say they do not believe my new best friends Professor Richard and Romana about EVOLUTION!

Apparently this is because they DO NOT WANT TO BE RELATED TO ANIMALS!

That is VERY RUDE! I feel SNUBBED!!!!!!

I don't want to be related to THEM, but – as the saying goes – you can't pick your relatives, can you!

Now it seems that Mr Blair has given some SCHOOLS to these people so that they can brainwashindoctrinate educate OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN with this anti-elephant propaganda belief.

They say that this is because their belief is as good as Professor Richard's theory but this is NOT TRUE because their belief is just "the story from the olden days is right" whereas Professor Richard's theory has EVIDENCE that he got with his TIME MACHINE!

[R: a time machine in the form of archaeology, palaeontology, geology, molecular biology and a brain.]

I don't understand why they don't listen to what Professor Richard (and LOTS of other SCIENTISTS) can tell them.

Honestly, if you were walking along and someone stopped you to say "Look! Your shoelace is undone." You wouldn't stick your fingers in your ears and say "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" now would you?!?

Children should have proper schools to go to, and not bamboozling brains trusts run by Mr Blair’s funny friends.

I am SURE that banks are just as nice as any other people, so I do not know why this story has made both of my Daddies cheer.

Like RHINOS (who are VERY thick!), banks are fond of CHARGES.

You bank is supposed to CHARGE you CHARGES to cover their own costs. For example, they charge you £35 when their robot computer sends you a letter for going £1 overdrawn because they have VERY POSH EXPENSIVE computers – good enough to play STAR WARS LEGO on!

Some people might think that the banks making more than THIRTY-THREE SQUILLION pounds of profit might HINT that they are doing QUITE WELL out of this arrangement. And it turns out they would be RIGHT!

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

It appears that BILLIONS and BILLIONS of Dollars supposedly sent to rebuild Iraq have mysteriously disappeared. Where can they have gone?

In business news: HALLIBURTON announces record profits…

It seems that Mr Balloon (who seems to be better after his BIRD FLU) is not as popular in the polls as he used to be. Horrible contagious NOSE PLAGUE can probably do that to you.

In order to feel better, he has tried to get EVEN MORE like Mr Blair by voting for Mr Blair’s education policy. And then got a bit confused by voting AGAINST him.

Nick MATE-OF-DAVE Robinson says that this is supposed to be embarrassing for Mr Blair.

I SHOULD SAY SO! Honestly. I’d be embarrassed if someone who forgot which way to vote kept HANGING AROUND trying to be like me!

According to Mr Mate-of-Dave, this was NOT a shoddy, opportunistic tactic by Mr Balloon. OH NO! It’s just that Mr Balloon wants to be able to say to the country that he supports Mr Blair and to say to the Conservatory Party that he is opposed to Mr Blair. And this is NOT TWO FACED. Mr Mate-of-Dave said so!

Meanwhile, it appears that MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Pounds supposedly sent as secret loans have mysteriously appeared in Mr Blair’s bank account. Where can they have come from?

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Do you remember how the HOUSE OF LORDS put Mr Blair’s nose out of joint over the I.D.IOT CARDS?

Well, I have discovered that the House of Lords is actually a sort of club that you can join. It has a membership fee of ONE MILLION DOLLARS POUNDS that you have to pay to Mr Blair.

I wonder why he makes such a fuss when he is the one selling the tickets?

I should like to join this club.

Although I am very happy being called Millennium Dome, I could ALSO be called LORD FLUFFYPHANT. There are too many DINOSAURS but not nearly enough ELEPHANTS in your legislature and anyway, I think that I would look very good on the red leather sofas.

(So long as nobody SAT ON ME!!!! I am NOT that sort of WOOLSACK!!!)

On the other fluffy foot, it is a very WEIRD system where Mr Blair gets to pick who are LORDS. AND he also gets to choose who are KNIGHTS and BISHOPS. Is it like a game of CHESS?

I suppose Mr Blair's friends ask: "would you like a CHEQUE, MATE?"

Daddy says that this is a VERY AWFUL joke.

People seem to be awfully upset about Mr Blair selling honours like this and say that it brings the whole honours system into disrepute. But frankly if you are going to give away prizes for being friends with Mr Blair, you should ask what sort of repute you start with!

That baldy man from the television has been making a bit of a fuss about this too! The baldy man is called NICK MATE-OF-DAVE ROBINSON and just like me, he has a DIARY!

Perhaps someone can explain to me why it is NAUGHTY when one person fixes it for their CHUMS to be in the HOUSE OF LORDS and NOT NAUGHTY when another person fixes it for their CHUM to be leader of the CONSERVATORY PARTY?

Meanwhile, in the paper today, Daddy Richard learned that the police have been using the OYSTER CARDS on the Underground to track people’s movements.

Fortunately, I do not NEED an Oyster Card because I am a SOFT TOY. This is probably why Mr Blair’s stormtroopers have not tracked me down over GLORIFYING JAMES BOND yet!

Monday, March 13, 2006

I have told my Daddies that the picture looks like this because it comes from FREEVIEW. Daddy Alex is suspicious – he thinks it looks better than usual.

Freeview is a new way of watching television. It works a bit like my DVDs, by breaking the picture down into numbers. But instead of scooping them all up onto a lovely shiny disc, the television people hurl them into the air in the hope that your telly will catch all of them.

I have tried to catch some of these numbers with my big fluffy ears but it does not work. I suspect that there is INTERFERENCE because I keep receiving messages from ALIENS instead.

Freeview used to be advertised by GIANT EXPLODING HEADS flying over the country. Apparently people found this head-explodingly terrifying. Well I could have told you that! Nowadays they have MARGO from the GOOD LIFE telling you how very nice it is in her VERY REASSURING voice.

Soon it will not be possible to watch television in the old fashioned way and everyone will have to have Freeview. This is supposed to be better, but PERSONALLY I am not sure that letting giant exploding heads roam the country is a COMPLETELY good idea.

Also in the news, the CLONE of Mr Blair who runs the London police is in trouble AGAIN.

According to BALDRIC, Irony is like Coppery and Bronzy only made of Iron.

I am NOT SURE that this is right!

In case you haven’t guessed, my Daddies are back from their holiday. You would think they had been to the NORTH POLE with all the fuss they make about the cold. If they have been to the North Pole, then they should have brought me presents from FATHER CHRISTMAS! (NOT!)

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Cuddly Cthulhu got summoned up by someone with a dodgy copy of the Necronomicon and had to go and SMITE someone. This means that I won the staring contest by default.

HOORAY!

Meanwhile, my Daddies have gone on holiday to somewhere. I think it was on the south coast of England so they were probably practicing for the next WINTER OLYMPICS. But the IMPORTANT THING is that this means that the telly is MINE for the weekend!!

In spite of what Mr Will said, I have been watching DIE ANOTHER DAY. It is NOT pish, and is in fact VERY good. It is DEFINITELY in my top twenty James Bond Films.

I like ALL of it. Even the bit when James Bond parachutes off the CARTOON ICEBERG. Even the bit with MADONNA!

I managed to watch it twice before Cuddly Cthulhu got back and smitedsmit smote the television.

Does anyone know where I can find a new telly before my Daddies get home???

However, Mr Frown would like to be living in Ten Downing Street FOR REAL as the REAL Prime Minister.

Mr Frown is like a BANK MANAGER – he likes to keep all of your money and then sends you bills for things you did NOT want in the first place. Usually rubbish things like a LETTER telling you you have gone OVERDRAWN or a SMALL WAR in the MIDDLE EAST. That sort of thing.

When he first started out, Mr Frown was very good. Mostly this is because he did other people's policies instead of his own. He did the LIBERAL DEMOCRAT policy of independenting the BANK OF ENGLAND and he did the Conservatory policy of not paying any doctors or teachers or lollipop ladies any more money AT ALL for AGES.

This was called ripping off other peoples ideas being PRUDENT.

However, after a bit I THINK Mr Frown got a bit bored. I know I would have. So he decided to uses everybody's money to buy some nice new things. An IPOD. A BLACKBERRY. An entire new NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE. And so on.

Unfortunately even with everybody's money he didn't have enough, but fortunately some very nice people called LOAN SHARKS DIRECT and SELL US YOUR SOUL dot COM agreed to let him buy lots of schools and hospitals on the NEVER-NEVER. This means that all of you people will have to keep paying for them until they fall down. And probably for a bit after that!

This is called buying popularity likes it's going out of fashion being PRUDENT.

Recently he has been trying to change his image.

For a long time he has been seen as the HERO of OLD LABOUR; Mr Frown does NOT want to be the HERO OF OLD LABOUR – he wants to be PRIME MINISTER thank you very much, so he is trying VERY, VERY hard to be like Mr Blair.

This involves leaving his bank and going around the country meeting people saying:

"Hullo. Nice to meet you. What are your thought on the stability growth pact? Do you want to make poverty history? Oh, sorry that was last year! No! Stop! Please come back! I'll give you your wallet back!"

Apparently he has also had his teeth fixed, but I cannot tell because you people are STRANGE and keep all of your teeth inside your mouths where they cannot be much use AT ALL!

Personally, I suggest that he finds himself a nice WHITE CAT and a SECRET BASE IN THE ALPS.

Excellent news, today! My favouritest MP – Sarah Teather – has been given a promotion by His Supremacy HRH Sir Mr the Merciless. She is now to be Shadow Secretary of State for Education.

This is a big step up from shadowing the Minister for Keeping Old Labour Onside!

Education is ANOTHER place where Mr Blair made a PROMISE and then did the EXACT OPPOSITE! He said he was going to make sure no one got charged TOP UP FEES for going to UNIVERSITY – and then he only goes and CHARGES THEM HIMSELF!

Mr Blair said that his top three priorities would be Education, Education, Education.

Someone needs to tell him that this is not three priorities but one priority SAID THREE TIMES. Even I can count better than THAT!

Daddy says that his promise might have been Education, Education, Education, but his actions have been Bodge It, Fudge It, Forget It.

By the way, Daddy Alex has said that I am wrong to call Mr Who Mr Who. I have checked, and Daddy is RIGHT – his name is actually Mr HEWN. Does this mean he is made from a block of WOOD?

Mr the Merciless has made Mr Hewn Shadow Secretary of State for the ENVIRONMENT, and I think this includes ELEPHANTS. I hope so as he is nice.

Meanwhile, Daddy Alex has a new book. It is called ABOUT TIME ONE and it is about DOCTOR WHO (and only a bit about TIME). It is VERY ironic that it is called ABOUT TIME because Daddy was promised this book LAST AUGUST!

However, this is actually GOOD timing, because my Daddies are watching the beginning of Doctor Who at the moment on a DVD called THE BEGINNING (well Duh!)

About Time is written by two people called Mr LARRY and MR TAT – or as Daddy Alex now calls them Mr TARRY and Mr LATE! (To be FAIR to Mr Tarry and Mr Late they HAVE already written book number three and book number four and book number five, so they have been QUITE busy!)

It is without doubt the BIGGEST reference book about Doctor Who SO FAR. I think that the FOUR books they have finished so far are probably almost as big as ME. And it is much less BORING than… erm… some of the others.

On the other hand, they are very OPINIONATED. Sometime my Daddies start betting QUATLOOS on which of them is going to BASH the other. And sometimes they turn my Daddy PURPLE with some of the things they say are FACTS.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

On the radio, a man from the police is saying that the police should keep their SHOOT TO KILL policy. But it should not be CALLED shoot to kill. Even though it involves SHOOTING people in order to KILL them.

Daddy Richard says I should look up DOUBLETHINK.

Anyway, the man from the police says that the police have asked themselves VERY SERIOUSLY whether they want to carry on SHOOTING TO KILL people and the police have said YES PLEASE.

Apparently this is because the THREAT of TERRORISTS is so great that the police must keep the ELEMENT OF SURPRISE.

I suppose it must SURPRISE the terrorists when the POLICE go around SHOOTING people at random. It probably confuses them when the POLICE are causing MORE TERROR than the terrorists.

I am not sure how this helps the situation, though.

There is probably a PLAN.

It is NOT a SECRET PLAN, though. The man from the police said so. He said that even though the public were not told about it, several police people knew about it so it cannot have been a secret.

Daddy is rolling his eyes again!

I am probably being OLD FASHIONED but I think that the police should probably be doing what elected people ask them to do rather than deciding what they want to do for themselves.

Incidentally, I have noticed that the police are ALSO run by a Mr Blair. I think that he might be CLONING himself.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

(You can tell that he is VERY cross when he starts appearing on the TELLY saying that people who do not agree with him are cuddling TERRORISTS or helping them to explode GRANNIES or something. He is not doing that today so he is only QUITE cross this time. This means that he sends a shaved teddy bear called Mr Clarke to do the shouting for him.)

Anyway, he is quite cross with some people called The HOUSE OF LORDS. Even though they are seriously geriatric (even older than HRH Sir Mr the Merciless!), they are actually quite clever some of the time. It must be because they get plenty of sleep.

What Mr Blair is cross about is I.D. CARDS. These are bits of card that tell you who you are. I do not NEED a bit of card to tell me who I am – I think I.D. must stand for IDIOT if they are for people who forget who they are! Personally I would be QUITE CROSS if someone told me I needed a piece of card to tell me who I am – but apparently this is NOT what Mr Blair is cross about.

The HOUSE OF LORDS have told Mr Blair that he cannot FORCE people to get an I.D.IOT card when they only want a PASSPORT.

(A PASSPORT is like a get out of jail free card for getting out of the country, and with Mr Blair in charge you will understand that they are VERY POPULAR at the moment!)

Funnily enough, last year Mr Blair wrote in his MANIFESTO that the I.D.IOT card scheme would be VOLUNTARY. I had to look up VOLUNTARY. In MY dictionary that means that people get to CHOOSE whether they want one or not. But Mr Blair often seems to be using a different dictionary to me.

The HOUSE OF LORDS told Mr Blair that since he promised that the I.D.IOT cards should be VOLUNTARY then that is what they should BE. Mr Blair says that this is against something that is called the SALISBURY CONFECTION (which I think is a sort of CAKE).

I think if Mr Blair promised something then he should keep his promises, but I am afraid that this will only get me LOCKED UP for GLORIFYING the HOUSE OF LORDS. Who are probably TERRORISTS by now. At least in Mr Blair’s dictionary.

Monday, March 06, 2006

This is yesterday's diary, a day late AGAIN. Obviously this is Daddy's fault and NOT MINE!

It is late because Daddy was watching his new DVD of SERENITY. This is one of the best films ever that doesn't have cars in.

The good news is that we also watched the last STAR TREK which means that we have finally, finally, finally finished!

Meanwhile, on the telly, Mr Blair has said that he expects GOD to judge him.

Daddy says this would come across better if Mr Blair didn't say that HE was acting on his CONSCIENCE and everyone ELSE was being OPPORTUNIST. Actually, Daddy Richard said some other things too, but I think that they were rude.

I must look up SANCTIMONIOUS.

If by "god" Mr Blair means an imaginary person who lives in the sky, you can see why he would rather be judged by him than by a real judge!

The only god that I know is CUDDLY CTHULHU, so I have asked him for his judgement on Mr Blair. Let's just say Mr Blair need not bother with HARP LESSONS!

(CDs are like DVDs with no pictures – I know this sounds silly, but they are much better for in the car because the pictures would distract Daddy from driving and he might crash and hurt Penfold.)

Anyway, Professor Richard's CDs are called THE ANCESTOR'S TALE. They are very good. Professor Richard and Romana get into their time machine and go on a journey backwards in time, meeting their ANCESTORS along the way. As they go – and this is the clever bit – they meet up with other time travellers from all the other species on Earth.

This is because of a thing called EVOLUTION.

EVOLUTION means animals (and plants too!) change into new animals. Some animals are better than others at surviving in the place where they live – so they tend to have more babies and so animals like them become more common.

Suppose you do lots of walking – animals with big, flat feet do better. And suppose you are somewhere very hot, animals with big flappy ears for cooling down do better. HOORAY! Elephants evolved!

This takes LOTS AND LOTS of time (LONGER than watching all of STAR TREK!)

Now, and this is the REALLY clever bit, when the animals go to a new place, it might be DIFFERENT things that are better for surviving. So the animals in the new place change into a different sort from the first lot.

For EXAMPLE, a long time ago, some of YOUR ancestors lived in a forest and decided to come out and that’s when you started to change into PEOPLE.

BUT some of them STAYED in the forest and they became CHIMPANZEES.

Isn't that EXCITING! It means that you and chimpanzees have a great, great, great, great, great, great, and then some grandparent in common!

So when Professor Richard and Romana set off on their time trip, the FIRST people who aren't people that they meet up with are chimpanzees, because they are your nearest relatives in the WORLD!

But that is not all! You are also related to gorillas and to rats and mice and to whales and hippopotamus and GUESS WHAT! You are related to ELEPHANTS TOO!

(Apparently we are also related to lions and tigers and potatoes too, which is much more DUBIOUS. I can believe that RHINOS are related to POTATOES, but I am not sure about ELEPHANTS.)

Professor Richard says that some people do not believe in EVOLUTION. They are silly! If all the animals had been created at the same time, then the DINOSAURS would have eaten all the PEOPLE. I have seen JURASSIC PARK!

I should also say that today I feel SAD for a lady called TESSA JOWELL.

She is a friend of Mr Blair, which is not why I am sad for her, but she has just lost her husband because he might have been a bit dodgy. I am sure that SHE must be feeling SAD too; I know I would be.

I wish that the Conservatories and the telly people would just LEAVE HER ALONE for a bit until she feels better. I know the Conservatories are supposed to be the nasty party and I am only a soft, fluffy elephant but this just seems MEAN.

I think that they are just cross because Mr Balloon made a speech yesterday and nobody noticed because they were all much more interested in MrtheMerciless. Here is a clue to help you out, Mr Balloon: SAY SOMETHING INTERESTING!

Friday, March 03, 2006

Last night Daddy Alex found a photograph of me from years ago. "Look how clean he was back then," he says, prompting Daddy Richard to start mopping my fluffy features with a damp cloth. Personally, I think bits of sticky bun add a certain distinction to an elephant's face, but Daddy was having none of that.

Also, the Liberal Democrats have chosen a new leader. This was called an ELECTION, which is a bit like The Apprentice but without ALIEN LIZARDS. (Probably.)

The Liberal Democrats do elections with Single Transferable Vote. That means they only have one vote but they pass it around so that they all have a turn to use it, which sounds FAIR to me.

Apparently, Mr Blair prefers One Member One Vote so long as he is the One Member with the Vote. Mr Balloon's Conservatories prefer a system called First Past the Port. They say that Single Transferable Vote is TOO COMPLICATED. That is NOT RIGHT! I am only a fluffy elephant but I can pick first second and third – even without being a count like Daddy – so it cannot be THAT difficult!

Anyway, the winner was Menzies the Merciless, who beat Mr Who and Mr Hugs. Menzies is a funny name, because although it is spelt Menzies it is pronounced Throat-Warbler Mangrove.

Mr the Merciless, or to give him his full title: Sir Mr the Merciless, was apparently an Olympic Runner. The Olympic Games were held in a country called Greece THOUSANDS of years ago, so Sir Mr the Merciless is doing very well to still keep going! It is probably VITAMINS.

But since then, Sir Mr the Merciless has been an EMINENT lawyer. That is very nearly an ELEPHANT lawyer, so I hope he will be able to help me when Mr Blair LOCKS ME UP for glorifying James Bond.

The best thing about Mr the Merciless is that he has lots of nice young friends including Sarah Teather who is my favouritest MP because she is the same size as ME!

In a way, I think that it is a shame that Mr Who did not win, because then he could have teamed up with Dr Who and that would have been very funny.

Also, I think that it is a shame that Mr Hugs did not win, because I think that HUGS are good – I AM a CUDDLY toy, after all.

Fortunately, because this is not The Apprentice, Sir Mr the Merciless did not say "You're Fired" to Mr Who or Mr Hugs, so I hope that they can all work with him.

Now I think that the first thing Sir Mr the Merciless should do is replace his old battle bus with WAR ROCKET AJAX!

Actually, Mr Sir Alan is a bit too CRABBY to be fluffy really – like Daddy Richard when he hears Mr Balloon on the Radio but ALL THE TIME! On the other hand, he DOES get to drive around in a big Rolls Royce (even if Daddy Richard says that that looks like a Dalek too!) It has the registration number "AMS", which clearly stands for Mr Sir Alan, but they got the letters in the wrong order. I do that sometimes, so it is very understandable, and number plates probably do not have spell checker to help them either.

Last night, Mr Sir Alan asked the ALIEN LIZARDS to try and make a calendar to sell that would raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The boys' team decided to take pictures of cute babies (YUCK!) but the girls' team decided to take pictures of kittens (DOUBLE YUCK WITH KETCHUP!).

"What have Kittens got to do with Great Ormond Street?" demands Daddy Alex.

Later, Mr Sir Alan says that Mr Calendar Man bought the Kitten calendar out of sympathy. I think Mr Sir Alan is WRONG. I think the girls used their alien lizard MIND PROBE on the calendar man.

Meanwhile the boys have forgotten to decide what price they want to sell their calendar for. No wonder the alien lizards have not taken over the world, they don't seem very bright AT ALL.

In the end, Mr Sir Alan fired the girl leader… but then he let her go and she escaped to her spaceship behind the moon!

Daddy Alex recons that he could do LOADS better at this, but I do NOT agree. Daddy Alex is not nearly EVIL enough to be a power crazed alien lizard. In fact, Daddy Alex is not evil AT ALL. So he would be no good at THE APPRENTICE.

I think it was better when Mickey Mouse made all the brooms. Maybe Mr Sir Alan does not want an apprentice like that, but in that case he needs to find some new ALIEN LIZARDS, I think.

I have been saying that JAMES BOND is good… but JAMES BOND hunts people down and blows things up.

Is this GLORIFYING TERRORISM?!?!?

I do not want to go to prison; I am only a baby elephant!

If I disappear, please call the human-rights lawyers. And the elephant-rights lawyers.

I will try and distract myself by telling you about Daleks, who have nothing to do with Mr Blair at all.

For the last two weeks my Daddies have been watching DOCTOR WHO and the DALEKS on DVD. This is a very OLD story, which means that everyone in it has gone grey, but it is still GOOD.

It is only the second DOCTOR WHO story ever, and Doctor Who has not yet made proper friends with Ian and Barbara. They land on a dead planet with stone trees and find a strange city. Doctor Who wants to investigate but Ian and Barbara want to go home, so Doctor Who tricks them by pretending his TARDIS is broken.

(The TARDIS is almost as good as a car – it is like Doc Brown's car that travels in time, but a bit less cool as it is a box and not a Delorean.)

So they all go down to the city and it turns out that the dead planet isn't really dead at all but has DALEKS living on it!

Daleks are the EXACT OPPOSITE of fluffy elephants!

Daleks are metal on the outside and squishy on the inside (which is not a good combination, even for a boiled sweet) and have one eye and no noses. I am soft on the outside and have two eyes and a BIG nose. And my ears don't light up when I talk, either!

Also, I like PEOPLE (even though you are different to ELEPHANTS). Daleks do NOT like people BECAUSE they are different from Daleks. My Daddies say this is because the Daleks are an ALLEGORY for the Nazis.

(Even though I thought that an AUSTIN ALLEGORY was a kind of car.)

When they escape from the Daleks, Doctor Who and Ian and Barbara and Susan (who I had forgotten) meet some nice people called the THALS and Doctor Who and Ian persuade them to team up to kill off the Daleks.

I do not think that this is right though. The Thals need the Daleks food and think that the Daleks might come out of their city and get them one day. This sounds a lot like saying they need the Daleks' OIL and that the Daleks might get them with WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION one day.

It would have been better if they waited until Doctor Who had found out that the Daleks really did want to kill them all with radiation.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

I should have written this diary yesterday, but Daddy Richard was TOO BUSY playing the STAR WARS game on the computer and wouldn’t let me have a go! He is MEAN!

He says that it is still yesterday in HAWAII. Humph!

Sean Connery's CAR was an Austin Martin DB5 with machine guns and rotating number plates and ejector seat. Roger Moore's CAR was a Lotus Esprit which could turn into a submarine. And Pearce Brosnan's CAR was an Austin Martin Vanquish which could turn invisible! (Which was good because his last car was CHOPPED IN HALF by the BADDIES!!!)

Can you guess what my very MOST FAVOURITE THING in the whole world is?

It's CARS!

Cars are shiny metal boxes in exciting shapes with a wheel at each corner and one in the middle for steering with. Cars are sometimes called Motor Cars because they have a motor in them which makes them go!

I have made Daddy go and look up cars on the Internet. Cars were invented by Herr Karl Benz in Germany on the 3rd of July 1886 (which means that cars are nearly 120 years old). Herr is German, and even though it sounds the same as Hair it does not mean FLUFFY, it is German for Mr.

Daddy Richard’s car is called PENFOLD and Penfold is named after the place when he bought his car (and also after Danger Mouse’s friend!). Penfold is a green Vauxhall Frontera – which means great big TANK to anyone driving a smaller car. Penfold is BAD FORM for a Liberal Daddy because big cars are BAD for the ENVIRONMENT. This is to do with greenhouse GAS – which I think is a polite way of talking about FARTING!

We do not let Daddy use Penfold very often, though, so hopefully that is better.

Elephants have invented GARDENING and SATELLITE TRACKING and all sorts of GOOD stuff, but we have not invented CARS. I THINK this is because we have big flat feet and are VERY GOOD for WALKING everywhere. Anyway, I have to admit that you have one over us there.

Sometimes Daddy Richard lets me sit in his CAR and this is very exciting. Because I am only a little elephant (SO FAR!) my fluffy feet do not reach the pedals so I cannot make Penfold go.

[R:thank the lord!]

I do not think that Penfold has an ejector seat – but I wouldn’t use it anyway because that is Daddy Alex’s seat.

And now Mr Balloon is on the radio. Daddy’s going that funny colour he goes before he starts shouting. I must go and look up the word VACUOUS.

PS

Mr Balloon said he was in favour of NICE things and against NASTY things.

He said he was in favour of saving the ENVIRONMENT because that was NICE

But he was against stopping people from making POLLUTION because that would be NASTY.

My head may be full of wool but this seems sensible to me. I don't know why Daddy is foaming at the mouth!

I have now looked up VACUOUS: Devoid of matter; empty – this is how balloons WORK isn't it!